The Nighthawk Awards: 1965

Ironically, the big star of 1965 (Julie Christie) would not be that great in the best film of 1965.

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section).  Films in blue were nominated.  Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.

I’m listing the top 10 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. Doctor Zhivago  *
2. Repulsion
3. The Pawnbroker
4. Drunken Angel
5. The Collector
6. Darling  **
7. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
8. King Rat
9. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
10. Thunderball

Analysis:  After two straight years of 10 **** films, I can’t even find five (only the top 4).
Darling only wins the Consensus Award by two points over Doctor Zhivago and The Sound of Music.  Darling won the NYFC and the English Language Foreign Film at the Globes while earning an Oscar nom.  The Sound of Music won the Oscar and the Globe.  Zhivago won the Globe and was Oscar and BAFTA nominated.
The Top 5 and Top 10 are both the lowest since 1945, yet both are better than 1966 will be.  The Collector is the weakest #5 film since 1948.  Repulsion is only the third Horror film since 1935 to make the Top 10.  Just like in 1962, there are again no Comedies in the Top 10.

• Best Director

1. David Lean  (Doctor Zhivago)  *
2. Roman Polanski  (Repulsion)
3. Sidney Lumet  (The Pawnbroker)  *
4. Akira Kurosawa  (Drunken Angel)
5. William Wyler  (The Collector)  *
6. John Schlesinger  (Darling)  **
7. Masaki Kobayashi  (Kwaidan)
8. Louis Malle  (Viva Maria)
9. Martin Ritt  (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold)
10. Michelangelo Antonioni  (Red Desert)

Analysis:  Lumet and Polanski earns their second nominations.  Lean earns his seventh nomination and third win (third film of his in a row to win), moving up to 450 points and a tie for fourth place.  But he’s still behind Wyler, who is up to 495 points with his 11th (and final) nomination (but still no wins).  Kurosawa is only earning his 9th nomination, but since he has four wins he moves up to 585 points and a tie with Billy Wilder for 1st place; it is also Kurosawa’s sixth nomination in a row.  A year after earning his only Nighthawk nomination, Masaki Kobayashi earns his only other Top 10 finish.

• Best Adapted Screenplay:

1. Doctor Zhivago  **
2. The Pawnbroker  *
3. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
4. The Collector  *
5. A Thousand Clowns  *
6. King Rat
7. The Human Condition Part III
8. Thunderball
9. The Train

Analysis:  Among the Consensus nominees were The Sound of Music and Ship of Fools.  So people thought those were better written than The Spy Who Came in From the Cold?  I can’t fathom that.  I’ve actually read four of the sources – Zhivago, Spy, Collector and Thunderball.  Zhivago is the first winner of Best Screenplay at the Globes, all five of whose nominees in this year were adapted.  It is written by Robert Bolt, who would also win the Oscar and Globe the next year for A Man for All Seasons, but in both years was likely ineligible for the WGA.
Now, how can The Train be listed here as an adapted script, when it was nominated at the Oscars as an original?  Because while I follow the Academy nominations in lead or supporting, I follow the current Academy rules when it comes to adapted or original.  I’m unclear how The Train, based on the book written by Rose Valland (the same person that Cate Blanchett’s character in The Monuments Men is based on) doesn’t qualify as “Material from Another Medium” as the Adapted Screenplay category said in 1965.  Yes, in 1970, the Academy would specify that scripts “Based on Factual Materials” would be part of the Original Screenplay category, but this is less clear.  Anyway, under today’s definition this would definitely be Adapted.  Since it still wouldn’t earn a nomination if it was Original (it would be in 6th place), I’m not gonna worry about it too much, but in 1970 this will be a much bigger deal.
This is the weakest Top 5 in this category since 1948.

• Best Original Screenplay:

1. Drunken Angel
2. Repulsion
3. Darling  **
4. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg  *
5. Viva Maria
6. Help

Analysis:  There was really no consensus in this year.  The WGA still did nominations by genre and most of their nominees were adapted and none of the original films nominated by the WGA earned Oscar noms.  Darling won both the Oscar and the BAFTA (the first original script to do so) at a time when the BAFTA was still awarded only for Best British Screenplay.
In spite of being a lesser film than Zazie in the Subway, Viva Maria earns Louis Malle his first Nighthawk nomination because this year is so much weaker.  Actually, that’s not completely true – it’s weaker at the bottom, though overall has a higher score (though not by much).  Kurosawa earns his sixth straight nomination and his fourth win in six years.  This put him at six wins overall and 600 points, tied with Bergman for second place.

• Best Actor:

1. Rod Steiger  (The Pawnbroker)  *
2. Richard Burton  (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold)  *
3. Laurence Olivier  (Othello)
4. Omar Sharif  (Doctor Zhivago)
5. Takashi Shimura  (Drunken Angel)
6. Terence Stamp  (The Collector)
7. Jason Robards  (A Thousand Clowns)
8. Lee Marvin  (Cat Ballou)  **
9. Sidney Poitier  (The Slender Thread)
10. Sean Connery  (The Hill)

Analysis:  The second nomination for Sharif, the third for Shimura (though made before his other two), the third for Steiger, the third for Burton and the ninth for Olivier.  This put Olivier at 370 points and third place all-time.
There’s a well-known story (repeated in Inside Oscar) about how Marvin told Steiger that he (Steiger) was going to win and that Marvin would kick him on his way up to the podium.  To me, it’s an easy win for Steiger with a truly amazing performance.  But Marvin actually should have been more confidant (even if I don’t think he remotely deserved to win) – he had won the Globe (albeit, for Comedy) and the NBR (and would go on to win the BAFTA) while Oskar Werner (Oscar and Consensus nominee for Ship of Fools, but my #13) had won the NYFC and Omar Sharif (not Oscar nominated) had beaten Steiger at the Globes.  It had been six years since anyone had lost the Globe and gone on to win Best Actor at the Oscars.  Was Marvin simply that impressed with Steiger?  I mean, he should have been, and Steiger should have won, but looking at the results, it just seems strange for him to be so certain that Steiger would win.
The top three are quite strong, but this is the weakest Top 5 in this category since 1950.

• Best Actress

1. Julie Christie  (Darling)  **
2. Catherine Deneuve  (Repulsion)
3. Samantha Eggar  (The Collector)  *
4. Julie Andrews  (The Sound of Music)  *
5. Monica Vitti  (Red Desert)
6. Vivien Leigh  (Ship of Fools)
7. Simone Signoret  (Ship of Fools)  *
8. Catherine Deneuve  (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)
9. Anne Bancroft  (The Slender Thread)
10. Kyoko Kishida  (Woman in the Dunes)

Analysis:  Christie, Deneuve and Eggar earn their first nominations while Andrews and Vitti both earn their second.
Christie easily wins the Consensus, winning four awards (NYFC, NBR, Oscar, BAFTA) and earning two more nominations (Globe and the BAFTA for Zhivago).  Her four wins tie the most to date, her six nominations set a new record which won’t be tied until 1970 and won’t be beaten until 1977 (which is also when her 329 Consensus points record will be broken).
I actually score the Top 5 of Best Actress higher than Best Actor, which doesn’t happen often (first time since 1950).

• Best Supporting Actor:

1. Tom Courteney  (Doctor Zhivago)  *
2. Toshiro Mifune  (Drunken Angel)
3. Tom Courteney  (King Rat)
4. Frank Finlay  (Othello)  *
5. Rod Steiger  (Doctor Zhivago)
6. Martin Balsam  (A Thousand Clowns)  **
7. Alec Guinness  (Doctor Zhivago)
8. John Mills  (King Rat)
9. Michael Dunn  (Ship of Fools)  *

Analysis:  Because Tom Courteney finishes in the Top 5 twice, Martian Balsam earns a Nighthawk nomination.  This is Finlay’s only nomination, Balsam’s second, Steiger’s fourth (counting his one for Actor), Courteney’s first and second and Mifune’s sixth.  This is Mifune’s fourth straight nomination, though this was his first major role; he’s now up to 250 points and 11th place.
Because the NYFC and BAFTAs still didn’t have a Supporting award and because the NBR (Harry Andrews for The Hill and The Agony and the Ecstasy), Oscar (Balsam) and Globe (Oskar Werner for The Spy Who Came in From the Cold) winners all failed to earn another nomination, this is the last time to date that the Consensus winner (Balsam) fails to have more than one nomination.
This category also has an odd Oscar story.  According to page 389 of Inside Oscar: “Martin Balsam told Shelley Winters, ‘I won because I didn’t get it for Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961.”  That seems odd, since he wasn’t nominated and hadn’t been nominated at the Globes either in 1961 and George Chakiris won both awards.  I mean, Balsam was good in Breakfast, but did he really think this was a make-up Oscar?

• Best Supporting Actress:

1. Maggie Smith  (Othello)  **
2. Geraldine Fitzgerald  (The Pawnbroker)
3. Ruth Gordon  (Inside Daisy Clover)  *
4. Joyce Redman  (Othello)  *
5. Claire Bloom  (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold)
6. Thelma Ritter  (Boeing Boeing)
7. Shelley Winters  (A Patch of Blue)  *
8. Barbara Harris  (A Thousand Clowns)

Analysis:  This is the only nomination for Bloom, the second (and last) for Redman, the third (and last) for Fitzgerald, the first (of a few) for Gordon and the first nomination and win (of many for both) for Smith.
Smith loses the Oscar, the BAFTA (as lead) and the Globe (as lead).  This makes her the only person to ever win the Consensus Award in this category without winning any of the awards, although, ironically, she of course wins the Nighthawk.
The weakest Top 5 in this category since 1956.

• Best Editing:

1. Repulsion
2. The Pawnbroker
3. Doctor Zhivago
4. Drunken Angel
5. Thunderball
6. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
7. The Train
8. The Human Condition Part III
9. The Hill
10. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Analysis:  The weakest Top 5 in this category since 1955 and the second weakest since 1949.  And even without a strong group, it’s still better than the Oscars where The Sound of Music won and The Great Race and Cat Ballou were nominated.  Does it say something that most of my list are black-and-white films while the Oscars nominated a whole slate of color films?

• Best Cinematography:

1. Doctor Zhivago
2. Repulsion
3. The Pawnbroker
4. Drunken Angel
5. Red Desert
6. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
7. Kwaidan
8. The Human Condition Part III
9. Woman in the Dunes
10. The Train

Analysis:  Freddie Young, again working with David Lean, earns his second win.  Boris Kaufman (The Pawnbroker) earns his fourth nomination.  Zhivago really is one of the most beautifully shot films ever made.

• Best Original Score:

1. Doctor Zhivago
2. Charulata
3. Drunken Angel
4. Kwaidan
5. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
6. The Agony and the Ecstasy
7. Ship of Fools
8. The Pawnbroker
9. The Skull
10. The Collector

Analysis:  Maurice Jarre earns his second win and his first of back-to-back wins (he also gets another Top 10 finish for The Collector).  Fumio Hayasaka, 10 years after his death, earns his third nomination working with Kurosawa (Drunken Angel finally getting a U.S. release 17 years after it was made).  Quincy Jones earns his first Top 10 finish for his score in The Pawnbroker.  Again, whatever issues anyone may have over the story in Zhivago, the music is amazing.  When the score for a film becomes a best-seller, you know you’ve got a hit.

• Best Sound:

1. Doctor Zhivago
2. Thunderball
3. Repulsion
4. The Train
5. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
6. The Hill
7. Drunken Angel
8. Red Line 7000
9. The Great Race
10. Viva Maria

Analysis:  Because of their love for musicals, The Sound of Music, of course, wins the Oscar.  But I much prefer the amazing sounds of Zhivago or the great Bond sound.

• Best Art Direction:

1. Doctor Zhivago
2. The Pawnbroker
3. Drunken Angel
4. The Agony and the Ecstasy
5. Red Desert
6. Inside Daisy Clover
7. Viva Maria
8. The Sound of Music
9. La Ronde
10. Darling

Analysis:  Again, it’s all about Zhivago, especially that amazing ice palace.  The Pawnbroker is the opposite – the dingy cramped feel of the pawn shop contrasted against the concentration camps.  The color Art Direction category was well done at the Oscars but the black-and-white category continued to show that it was outdated.

• Best Visual Effects

1. Thunderball
2. Red Line 7000

Analysis:  The only Bond film to win Visual Effects, and it definitely deserved it.  Connery with a rocket pack!

• Best Sound Editing

1. Thunderball
2. Red Line 7000
3. Doctor Zhivago
4. The Great Race
5. The Flight of the Phoenix
6. Viva Maria
7. Von Ryan’s Express
8. Major Dundee
9. Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
10. The Railroad Man

Analysis:  This category will do better from here on out, though the Academy will go back and forth on keeping it.

• Best Costume Design:

1. Doctor Zhivago
2. Kwaidan
3. Viva Maria
4. Inside Daisy Clover
5. The Agony and the Ecstasy
6. The Sound of Music
7. La Ronde
8. Darling
9. Onibaba
10. Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

Analysis:  Again, the color choices were very good and the black-and-white category just really needed to be done away with.

• Best Makeup

1. Othello
2. Doctor Zhivago
3. Kwaidan

Analysis:  It’s preferable to have someone who is actually black playing Othello.  But the makeup on Olivier is really quite impressive.

• Best Original Song:

1. “Help”  (Help)
2. “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”  (Help)
3. “Ticket to Ride”  (Help)
4. “The Night Before”  (Help)
5. “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”  (Help)
6. “What’s New Pussycat”  (What’s New Pussycat)
7. “Baby the Rain Must Fall”  (Baby the Rain Must Fall)
8. “I Will Wait For You”  (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)
9. “The Ballad of Cat Ballou”  (Cat Ballou)
10. “Go East Young Man”  (Harum Scarum)

Analysis:  One of the best Top 5 groups in history, and of course, they all come from the same film.  “Help” is my absolute favorite Beatles song and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” might make my Top 10.  Help is a far inferior film to A Hard Day’s Night but the original songs written for it are actually better.
This year has five semi-finalists (marked in orange), the only one of which makes my Top 10 is marked in orange.  The Oscar nominees look pretty decent, as three of the nominees make my second five as does one of the semi-finalists.  However, they are helped by the fact that I cut off original song nominations at five.  If I included the other two original songs from Help (“Another Girl”, “I Need You”), they would be #6 and 7.
Oscars.org lists 168 original songs for this year, of which I have seen the film for 103 of them.  That includes three different films with at least 10 (Beach Blanket Bingo, Girl Happy, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini), none of which even make my list.  The only film with more than four eligible songs that I haven’t seen is Ferry Cross the Mersey (whose title song would be my #6 if I had seen the film) because it’s incredibly difficult to see these days.

• Best Animated Film:

1. none

Analysis:  There are four animated films in this year, one of which, The Magic World of Topo Gigio, I have not seen.  Pinocchio in Outer Space is a ** film and is best forgotten.  The other two films aren’t even listed at Oscars.org: Man from Button Willow and Willy McBean and His Magic Machine.  They are both low range **.5 films.  Willy McBean is the first feature from Rankin / Bass, who are a lot more well-known for their television work (which is generally far superior to their actual features).

• Best Foreign Film:

1. Red Beard
2. Simon of the Desert
3. Yoyo
4. The Shop on Main Street  *
5. Kwaidan  *
6. Le Bonheur
7. Viva Maria

note:  Films in green were submitted to the Academy but not nominated.

Analysis:  Juliet of the Spirits was the easy Consensus winner, winning the Globe, NBR and NYFC, though it wasn’t submitted at the Oscars.  It is, however, the first film in which I think Fellini’s self-indulgence takes over from his talent and it only earns a high *** from me and thus doesn’t make my list.
The Shop on Main Street becomes the first film of the Czech New Wave to earn a Nighthawk nomination (and to win the Oscar).  A year after having no nominee for the first time since 1950, Japan once again wins the Nighthawk.  After finishing in second behind Bergman three times in the previous five years, Kurosawa wins the Nighthawk for the first time in seven years; the win is ironic since Red Beard is actually weaker than those three previous films.  Luis Buñuel and Masaki Kobayashi both earn their third nominations in five years.  This is the only year between 1959 and 1969 that has neither an Italian nor a Swedish nominee.
Red Beard is the second weakest winner since 1948 but is actually an improvement over the year before.  Simon of the Desert is the weakest #2 film since 1956.  The Top 5 is stronger than the year before but weaker than all the years from 1957 to 1963.

By Film:

note:  They’re in points order.  You get twice as many points for a win as for a nomination.  Hopefully your math skills will let you figure out the system.

• Doctor Zhivago  (660)
  • Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actor, Editing, Cinematography, Original Score, Sound, Art Direction, Sound Editing, Costume Design, Makeup
    
• Drunken Angel  (355)
  • Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor, Editing, Cinematography, Original Score, Art Direction, Foreign Film (1948)
• The Pawnbroker  (305)
  • Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actress, Editing, Cinematography, Art Direction
• Repulsion  (265)
  • Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actress, Editing, Cinematography, Sound
• Othello  (175)
  • Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actress, Makeup
• The Collector  (170)
  • Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Actress
• The Spy Who Came in From the Cold  (130)
  • Adapted Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Score
• Thunderball  (125)
  • Editing, Sound, Visual Effects, Sound Editing
• Darling  (110)
  • Original Screenplay, Actress
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg  (80)
  • Original Screenplay, Sound, Foreign Film (1964)
• Red Desert  (80)
  • Actress, Cinematography, Art Direction
• A Thousand Clowns  (70)
  • Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor
• Viva Maria  (65)
  • Original Screenplay, Costume Design, Makeup
• Kwaidan  (60)
  • Original Score, Costume Design, Foreign Film
• Help  (60)
  • Original Song, Original Song, Original Song, Original Song, Original Song
• Inside Daisy Clover  (45)
  • Supporting Actress, Costume Design
• Red Line 7000  (40)
  • Visual Effects, Sound Editing
• The Sound of Music  (35)
  • Actress
• The Agony and the Ecstasy  (35)
  • Art Direction, Costume Design
• King Rat  (30)
  • Supporting Actor
• Charulata  (25)
  • Original Score
• The Train  (20)
  • Sound
• The Great Race  (20)
  • Sound Editing
• The Flight of the Phoenix  (20)
  • Sound Editing
• The Railroad Man  (20)
  • Foreign Film (1956)
• The Human Condition Part III (20)
  • Foreign Film (1961)

Analysis:  Yes, I am a big fan of Lean, and Zhivago becomes the third Lean film in a row to completely dominate my awards.

Best Film Not Nominated for Any Nighthawk Awards:

• Major Dundee

Analysis:  My #14 film of the year, a very good Western from Sam Peckinpah.  It only has one Top 10 finish (8th place in Sound Editing) but has six finishes in the Top 20.

Biggest Awards Film Not Nominated for Any Nighthawk Awards:

• Ship of Fools

Analysis:  This mediocre Stanley Kramer effort is my #121 of the year.  It does come close to getting nominations, coming 6th and 7th in Actress, 7th in Score and 8th in Supporting Actor.  It is the worst film to be nominated for any Drama awards.  It earned 651 Awards points, the third highest to date for a film with no Nighthawk nominations (behind Marty and Becket).  It won two Oscars as well as two Best Actor awards (NYFC for Oskar Werner, NBR for Lee Marvin, though that was really more for Cat Ballou).  It earned a WGA nom, two BAFTA noms, three Globe noms (including Picture – Drama) and 8 Oscar noms, including Picture.

Nighthawk Golden Globes:

Drama:

• Best Picture

1. Doctor Zhivago
2. Repulsion
3. The Pawnbroker
4. Drunken Angel
5. The Collector

Analysis:  Not a great year, but a little stronger than the year before.  As much as I criticize the Oscars, this is a more rare year where I actually agree with the Globe winner for Picture – Drama.

• Best Director

1. David Lean  (Doctor Zhivago)
2. Roman Polanski  (Repulsion)
3. Sidney Lumet  (The Pawnbroker)
4. Akira Kurosawa  (Drunken Angel)
5. William Wyler  (The Collector)

Analysis:  From 1955 to 1970, only three times does the Globe Best Director winner win my Best Drama Director; all three times it’s David Lean.
Polanski earns his 1st nomination, Lumet his 2nd, Lean his 7th (and third win), Wyler his 12th (no wins) and Kurosawa his 9th.  Kurosawa is still in first place with 585 points.

• Best Adapted Screenplay:

1. Doctor Zhivago
2. The Pawnbroker
3. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
4. The Collector
5. King Rat

Analysis:  This was the first year of the Screenplay award at the Globes (which has always been a combined award).  Zhivago, of course, then becomes the first film to win Picture, Director and Screenplay.  It would, in fact, go 5 for 5 at the Globes.  In the years since, though another 16 films have won those big three awards, only two other films have been nominated for those three awards and won every award they were nominated for – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Slumdog Millionaire.

• Best Original Screenplay:

1. Drunken Angel
2. Repulsion
3. Darling

Analysis:  Kurosawa earns his tenth nomination and his seventh win (third in a row) to go up to 680 points and 1st place in Drama.

• Best Actor:

1. Rod Steiger  (The Pawnbroker)
2. Richard Burton  (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold)
3. Laurence Olivier  (Othello)
4. Omar Sharif  (Doctor Zhivago)
5. Takashi Shimura  (Drunken Angel)

Analysis:  Oddly enough, even though Othello would be nominated for Best English Language Foreign Film at the Globes and three acting awards, Olivier was not nominated.
It’s the second nomination for Sharif, the third for Steiger, the fifth for Shimura (third in a row), the fourth for Burton and the ninth for Olivier (370 points, 3rd place).

• Best Actress

1. Julie Christie  (Darling)
2. Catherine Deneuve  (Repulsion)
3. Samantha Eggar  (The Collector)
4. Monica Vitti  (Red Desert)
5. Vivien Leigh  (Ship of Fools)

Analysis:  I have Leigh almost as a tie with my 6th place, Simone Signoret, also from Ship of Fools, who was nominated at the Globes.  It’s the only nomination for Eggar, the first for Christie, the first (of several) for Deneuve, the second (and last) for Vitti and the sixth (and final) for Leigh.  Leigh finishes her Drama career with 280 points and in sixth place.

• Best Supporting Actor:

1. Tom Courteney  (Doctor Zhivago)
2. Toshiro Mifune  (Drunken Angel)
3. Tom Courteney  (King Rat)
4. Frank Finlay  (Othello)
5. Rod Steiger  (Doctor Zhivago)

Analysis:  Mifune is the big man here; it’s his fifth consecutive nomination and his seventh overall.  It puts him at 315 points and a tie for 6th place.

• Best Supporting Actress:

1. Maggie Smith  (Othello)
2. Geraldine Fitzgerald  (The Pawnbroker)
3. Joyce Redman  (Othello)
4. Claire Bloom  (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold)
5. Shelley Winters  (A Patch of Blue)

Analysis:  Maggie Smith was nominated for lead at the Globes.  It’s the first Drama nomination for Bloom, the first of many for Smith, the only one for Redman, the third for Fitzgerald and the third for Winters.

• Doctor Zhivago  (395)
  • Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actor
• Drunken Angel  (240)
  • Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor
• The Pawnbroker  (235)
  • Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actress
• Repulsion  (170)
  • Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actress
• The Collector  (170)
  • Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Actress
• Othello  (155)
  • Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actress
• Darling  (110)
  • Original Screenplay, Actress
• The Spy Who Came in From the Cold  (105)
  • Adapted Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actress
• King Rat  (70)
  • Adapted Screenplay
• Red Desert  (35)
  • Actress
• Ship of Fools  (35)
  • Actress
• A Patch of Blue  (30)
  • Supporting Actress

Analysis:  Zhivago, of course, like Bridge and Lawrence, dominates the Drama awards.

Best Drama Not Nominated for Any Nighthawk Golden Globes:

• The Railroad Man

Analysis:  A mid-range ***.5 social drama from Pietro Germi.  My #12 film of the year (which makes it my #10 Drama).

Comedy / Musical:

• Best Picture

1. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
2. Thunderball
3. A Thousand Clowns
4. Viva Maria

Analysis:  Umbrellas was nominated as Best Foreign Film.  It’s just a really weak year for Comedy.  The Top 5 Comedies in 1964 averaged a record high 94.6.  The the Top 5 Comedies in this year (Help is the fifth best) average a 78.4, the lowest average in eight years.

• Best Director

1. Louis Malle  (Viva Maria)
2. Jacques Demy  (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)

Analysis:  Malle earns his second straight nomination.  Demy earns his only nomination.

• Best Adapted Screenplay:

1. A Thousand Clowns
2. Thunderball

Analysis:  The year before Goldfinger couldn’t even get nominated in this category, while in this year it would have won the award easily.

• Best Original Screenplay:

1. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
2. Viva Maria
3. Help

Analysis:  Help is just charming and funny enough to earn a nomination but overall this is a very weak category.

• Best Actor:

1. Jason Robards  (A Thousand Clowns)
2. Lee Marvin  (Cat Ballou)

Analysis:  It’s the first Comedy nomination for both, but Marvin will be nominated again the next year and Robards has another win in his future.

• Best Actress

1. Julie Andrews  (The Sound of Music)
2. Catherine Deneuve  (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)
3. Natalie Wood  (Inside Daisy Clover)

Analysis:  It’s the first nomination for Deneuve (not normally known for Comedic / Musical roles), the third for Wood and the third for Andrews (and second win in a row).
As much as I am not a fan of The Sound of Music (I think I made that quite clear in my review), Andrews really is very good in it.

• Best Supporting Actor:

1. Martin Balsam  (A Thousand Clowns)

Analysis:  It’s Balsam’s second nomination.

• Best Supporting Actress:

1. Ruth Gordon  (Inside Daisy Clover)
2. Thelma Ritter  (Boeing Boeing)
3. Barbara Harris  (A Thousand Clowns)

Analysis:  Harris was nominated as a lead at the Globes.  It’s the first nominations for Harris and Gordon and the second for Ritter (the Oscars loved her in comedic roles but I’m not as big on them, especially in Hudson / Day films).

• A Thousand Clowns  (290)
  • Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg  (260)
  • Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actress
• Viva Maria  (180)
  • Picture, Director, Original Screenplay
• Inside Daisy Clover  (95)
  • Actress, Supporting Actress
• Thunderball  (90)
  • Picture, Adapted Screenplay
• The Sound of Music  (70)
  • Actress
• Help  (40)
  • Original Screenplay
• Boeing Boeing  (30)
  • Supporting Actress

Analysis:  Just a really weak year overall, a sad year in comparison to the amazing Comedies of the year before.

Best Comedy Not Nominated for any Nighthawk Golden Globes:

• Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

Analysis:  It’s my #6 Comedy of the year but only the #36 film.  A nice enough film, but not really deserving of any awards attention (even if the Globes did nominate it for Picture and Actor).

Roundup for the Year in Film:

Eligible Films I Have Seen:  159

By Stars:

• ****:  4
• ***.5:  14
• ***:  86
• **.5:  37
• **:  13
• *.5:  1
• *:  2
• .5:  2
• Average Film Score for the Year, out of 100:  63.06

Analysis:  It’s the first year since 1948 without at least five **** films, but the 14 ***.5 films are the fifth most to date.  The 159 total films is the most to date.  There are fewer bad films, so the overall average moves up just a tiny bit.

Oscar-Nominated Films I Have Not Seen:

• Dear John  (Best Foreign Film)

note:  Dear John would be eligible for other awards in 1966.

Other Award Nominated Films I Have Not Seen (in descending order of points total):

• Grasshopper  (BAFTA – Best Picture (1956))
• Rotten to the Core  (BAFTA – Best British Art Direction – black-and-white)

note:  Grasshopper is a 1955 Soviet film that earned a BAFTA nomination in 1956 and finally became Oscar eligible in 1965.  It’s extremely difficult to find.  Rotten to the Core is a Boulting brothers crime comedy that should be easier to find than it is.

Oscar Quality:

Best Picture:  Not a good year, by any means, ranking at #71.  Zhivago is the only Best Picture nominee in the Top 250 and Ship of Fools doesn’t even make the top 450.  Sitting between 1964 (#46) and 1966 (#43), it looks even worse.  Though this doesn’t affect its rank, it doesn’t help that The Sound of Music is the weakest winner between 1958 and 1985.

The Winners:  The winners average rank among the nominees is a 2.45, which is a slight improvement over 1964.  But the average rank among all films is an 8.45, which is considerably worse than 1964 and the worst  since 1958.  To be fair though, if you take out Best Picture (where The Sound of Music ranks 44th on the year), the average rank among all films is a 6.76, a slight improvement on 1964.  The only categories where the Oscar went to the worst nominee was in Director and Song but it also went to the fourth best in Picture, Actor and Supporting Actress, so the major categories did not fare well.  In six categories (Picture, Director, Editing, Black-and-White Cinematography, Sound and Song), the Oscar winner ranked 15th or worse on my overall list.

The Nominees:  The nominees aren’t great, with an overall score of 54.0, slightly worse than the year before.  The Tech categories earn a 50.0.  The acting categories earn a 75.0, a slight improvement over the year before, but still below average to this date.  For the first time since 1958, only one acting category (Actor – 87.9) earns a score above 75, though nothing is below a 63.  However, none of the four major categories scores above a 60 and the major score is only a 48.1.

Golden Globe Best Picture – Comedy / Musical:  It ranks 47th out of 65, but to the Globes credit, there wasn’t a lot to work with.  Discounting Foreign films (not eligible at the Globes) and possibly discounting Thunderball and Help (British films competed in the English Language Foreign Film category), that leaves my top three eligible films as A Thousand Clowns (the only one I feel is good enough to actually earn a nomination), The Sound of Music and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, all of which were nominated (Sound of Music won, of course).  If forced to pick five, I would go with Inside Daisy Clover and Boeing Boeing, but the fourth actual nominee, The Great Race, is just behind those, so it’s not a particularly bad choice.  But the Globes, like the Oscars, greatly over-rated Cat Ballou and made it the final choice and that I can’t overlook.  Still, even had the Globes picked the five best eligible films, this year still wouldn’t make the Top 30; it’s just too weak of a year.

Top 5 Films of the Year:

1  –  Dr. Zhivago  (reviewed here)

Polanski proves that he isn’t a one-hit wonder.

2  –  Repulsion  (dir. Roman Polanski)

Who would have been prepared for this film?  Who would have known what to expect?  By now, of course, we have seen all the amazing work of Polanski’s career and we have seen a number of award worthy performances from Catherine Deneuve.  We know what the two of them are capable of.  But in 1965, we didn’t know that.  At the time, Roman Polanski was a young Polish filmmaker who had made one feature film – a taught suspense film called Knife in the Water.  Catherine Deneuve was known more for being beautiful than for her acting, though her performance in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (released in France in 1964, but not in the States until 1965) had at least shown that she was a real actress.  That both of them could work in English (because this was the first English work for both I always have to remind myself it’s in English) and make a film like this was a revelation.

This is not the Deneuve of Umbrellas.  She is not romantic here, she is not full of life and gloriously shown to us in color.  Her icy beauty has been subsumed to the black and white cinematography (truly fantastic work from Gilbert Taylor, the great award-winning British cinematographer).  The romanticism of her previous film has been repressed into sexual fear; she contracts from the slightest touch or noise.  When her sister, along with her boyfriend, leave the the country on holiday, Deneuve shuts herself into the flat and cowers in fear of what might come through that door.  What does come through the door is a young lad who has been interested in her; this move will cost him his life and will snap the ever tenuous hold that she has on anything resembling sanity.  From here on, we remember that Polanski showed himself a master of suspense in his first film, but that he will also be known, forever more as one of the absolute masters of psychological horror.  His films can be violent, yes (no Shakespeare film adaptation has been as covered in blood as his MacBeth), but the real horror is in the mind, is in the fear, is in the very knowledge or lack thereof of what might be lurking in the shadows.  Even in his non-Horror classics, films like Tess or The Pianist, that fear is ever-present.

There is not much in the way of dialogue in this film; Deneuve’s performance is based much more on what she does with her eyes, with her body, with her movement, and there’s no question that Polanski’s direction helps make her into the star that she will become.  If you skipped directly from Umbrellas to Belle de Jour, you would be flabbergasted, but Repulsion is the step in between, the film where she really becomes a magnificent actress.

If you can take being seriously depressed for a couple of hours watch a truly amazing performance.

3  –  The Pawnbroker  (dir. Sidney Lumet)

I first became really interested in film in 1989.  That was when I started keeping tracks of films I had seen and rating them (thus why my RCM project cuts off there).  I became a film buff.  One of my best friends appreciated that – his father was a film professor and is now the dean of a film school.  So, for Christmas that year he gave me the book called “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet”: 501 Famous Lines from Great (and Not-So Great) Movies.  This book was one of my first film books.  I immediately started entering great lines in the blank pages at the back (my #502 was “Ooh, ooh, aah, aah”  “I’ll have what she’s having.” which had just come out that past summer and I stopped with #543: “AK-47.  For when you absolutely positively have to kill every motherfucker in the room.  Accept no substitutes.”, so I kept it going for almost a decade) and started marking off the films I had seen.  Some of the films aren’t particularly great (some of the lines really aren’t either), so while you’d be hard pressed to find an edition of 1001 Movies You Have to See Before You Die in which I haven’t seen every film, there are still six films quoted in the book I haven’t seen (for the record: Night After Night, The Bride Walks Out, The Black Shield of Falworth, The Female on the Beach, I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name).  It is not a perfect book – it has some misquotes, misses some great ones, gives far too much weight to 1939 (23 quotes) and has some dates wrong.  But it’s so ingrained in my head, that when recently re-watching The Hospital, as soon as George C. Scott starts to insult the doctor, I immediately remembered the end of the quote because of seeing it so many times in the book (“You’re greedy, unfeeling, inept, indifferent, self-inflating and unconscionably profitable.  Aside from that, I have nothing against you.  I’m sure you play a helluva game of golf.”)  All of this may seem like a ridiculously long (true) and pointless (not the case, as you’ll see) digression.  But in those early days of my film obsession, when I still had only seen six Best Picture winners (The Sound of Music, Platoon, Terms of Endearment, Rain Man, West Side Story, Kramer vs. Kramer), there were still thousands of films ahead of me and this book helped draw me towards them.  So, before I first read about it in Inside Oscar, before I was drawn to it for its Oscar nomination for Best Actor (when really it should have been nominated for a whole lot more, as evidence by its 8 Nighthawk nominations), what I knew about The Pawnbroker was this fascinating quote: “Happened?  I didn’t die.  Everything that I loved was taken away from me and I did not die.”

Just reading the line gives you enough, but when you have seen the film, when you feel the anguish in Rod Steiger’s voice, when you realize that he works all day, shut up behind the bars of the pawnshop, pushing back all of his emotions, looking disdainfully at the “scum” around him, because to dare to feel anything means that those other emotions, the ones he has been pushing back for almost 20 years now, the ones that overwhelm him in an instant if he allows himself to feel, will come back and haunt him.  Because he did not die.  Everything he had was taken from him and he did not die.  What happened to him, of course, was the Holocaust, that great tragedy of human suffering, the nadir of human history.  I have written before of my inability to be objective when writing about The Diary of Anne Frank.  But the film version of Diary (nor, indeed the diary itself) does not depict the actual Holocaust – you have to know the history of what comes after those last words.  The Holocaust had been rendered on film before this, most notably in Night and Fog.  Reading Anne Frank’s remarkable book wasn’t enough in and of itself to break any belief I had in the existence of god – it was helped along by my freshman year History class in which we watched Night and Fog and saw those images that can not ever fully be scraped off the back of your mind.  But no American film had ever attempted to actually depict the horror that occurred in the camps; not until The Pawnbroker, a film so important, so vibrant, so powerful, that it had nude breasts on-screen and it was allowed.

That scene might be the most remarkable in this film, not because of its historic context, but because of its context within the film itself.  A woman is desperate to get more money at the pawnshop, and in her desperation bare her breasts to Steiger.  What happens is not lust stirring in Steiger, but a memory from the camps, a brutal memory he has worked for years to repress, to push so far back into his brain that he will never again be able to access it, and yet, here it is, pulled straight to the forefront of his consciousness.  As will also happen at the end of the film, he has fought so hard to keep from feeling anything, and yet, when things break through his defenses and leave him no choice but to have to find some kind of emotion to cope with what is in front of him, it is simply more pain being piled upon a man who long ago passed his threshold for coping with any more.

Steiger’s performance is nothing short of amazing.  There are times that Steiger could be a complete ham and most of his performances after 1970 aren’t worth remembering.  He would win an Oscar two years later for a performance that I didn’t even think was the best lead performance in that film (I really think it was kind of a make-up for not winning for this film).  But he could also be a truly remarkable actor, with performances like this and On the Waterfront.  He had come out of New York theater, and in Sidney Lumet, one of the greatest directors to ever come out of theater, he had found a director who really knew how to properly shape his performance.  Lumet would never win an Oscar in spite of four nominations (he should have been nominated for this film), but his work on stage before coming to the screen meant he really knew how to work with actors.  At one point, in the stretch of five years, ten performances directed by Lumet would earn Oscar nominations and four of them would win.  His films would earn 4 Nighthawk acting wins and 24 acting nominations.  And his and Steiger’s work is far from the only great work done here – Quincy Jones has a masterful score and Boris Kaufman’s ability to find the bars in the light shining across Steiger’s face is incredible.  But, aside from Steiger, the most important work on the film might be that of editor Ralph Rosenblum.  What he does is nothing short of amazing, using the editing to help us get an understanding of the pain this man has gone through, the shame and anger that have shaped him into this cynical, beaten down man who refuses to come out from behind his bars and see the life that still goes on all around him.  There are few films not adapted from classical plays that really earn the moniker of “tragedy” but, as we look at the pain in Steiger’s eyes, especially in those final closing minutes, as we remember what he has gone through and that there he is, still not dead, we understand that this film is one that has.

Over a decade after Rashomon comes to the States, the first Kurosawa-Shimura-Mifune film finally arrives.

4  –  Drunken Angel  (dir. Akira Kurosawa)

I would have loved to have been around in the 50’s, discovering the Kurosawa and Bergman films as they arrived in the States.  It must have been amazing, for those aware of them, to see these remarkable films.  But, in truth, I prefer to have found them later, after they had all been released, even if it meant I saw almost all of them on video (I do mean video – I saw every Kurosawa film on video before I saw any on DVD) rather than in the theater.  That’s because I got to see them in the order that he made them, rather than the order they arrived.  Yes, Rashomon was a revelation of a film.  It’s still a revelation of a film and I’ve owned it on DVD for over 10 years.  But it’s not a sudden revelation of the amazing talents of Akira Kurosawa (both as writer and director), or of his two main stars, Takashi Shimura (the one who came first) and Toshiro Mifune (the one who came to dominate).  That had already been apparent since the first film they made together, Drunken Angel (Shimura’s fifth film with Kurosawa) and the one that would seem to establish the roles that they would play together.

Drunken Angel would first play in Los Angeles (listed as Oscars.org) in 1965, some 17 years after it was originally released in Japan, and 13 years after Rashomon won Best Foreign Film at the Oscars.  The angel in question is a doctor, a drunk of a man played with a quiet, not quite-dignity by Takashi Shimura.  Shimura would settle perfectly into this role, the more quiet, introspective member in the cast, a role that would come up again in films like Rashomon and Seven Samurai, and would culminate in his greatest performance in Ikiru.  One night he treats a consumptive gangster for a gunwound.  He tries to make the gangster understand that he is destroying himself – his self-destruction through drink will come even before his inevitable violent end in crime if he doesn’t do something.  The young gangster, of course, is Takashi Shimura, a violent burst of life in the middle of this film, his first major role on film, his first film with Kurosawa, and the performance that would set the pattern for what was to come.  Yes, in Stray Dog, the roles would be slightly reversed, in that Mifune would be the star and Shimura would come in later to help him, but still, Shimura would continue to be the quiet one while Mifune’s energy would almost melt the screen in that film, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Hidden Fortress and many others.

Aside from the beginning of this magnificent partnership between the three men, this film is a great film in its own right.  In spite of the title, the doctor himself is not an angel, just a drunken man who continues to do what he can to make people better and to force them to try to get better.  We see the seedy underside of what was still an occupied land, with prostitutes and swamps surrounding the men.  And the gangster life is not idealized in any way – Mifune is headed towards death and it comes for him in many ways, not the least because he is being pushed out of his job, pushed out of his relationship, and eventually, being pushed out of life entirely.

This is an important film in film history because of the first appearance of Mifune in a Kurosawa film.  But it is perhaps just as notable for being the first great film from a man whose subsequent career will be almost completely filled with great films.  The two of them would make 16 films together; none of them are bad and most of them are great.

William Wyler proves he still has it, even after all those Oscars.

5  –  The Collector  (dir. William Wyler)

In a sense there is a very real connection between The Collector and Repulsion.  On the surface, they may seem quite different.  The black-and-white second film of a young Polish director made from an original script, starring a French actress who is still known more for her beauty than her acting versus a color film from a three-time Oscar winner for Picture and Director, made from an acclaimed novel starring a young British actor who has already earned an Oscar nomination.  Yet, both could have been chamber plays, with the action shut away in small locales, with psychological horror hovering over us.

More importantly, the very real connection comes between the two leads.  Both of them bring death to those who come into the living space with them.  And yet, would either of them be classified as evil?  Both of them have tenuous holds on sanity – in Repulsion, Deneuve is repulsed by any sort of sexuality (likely stemming from abuse that is hinted at in the film) while in The collector, Terrence Stamp is unable to come to terms with sexuality and takes a young woman that he is obsessed with prisoner (as is spelled out in the biography A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler by Jan Herman, Stamp suggested that his character is impotent, thus bringing us to the penultimate scene where he is finally able to fuck her because she is dead – Wyler at first didn’t like the idea, but he later decided to go ahead and film it).  Yes, there’s no question that there is something seriously wrong with Stamp; but, like Deneuve, it is a psychological problem that would be more accurately defined as illness rather than any sort of psychosis.  That is what allows us in both cases not to be completely repulsed by the films themselves – these characters are fascinating and their actions, though horrifying, interest us.  Part of that is the strong writing in both films, developing the characters and their problems.  But part of it is certainly in the performances from Deneuve and Stamp.

I may have perhaps done Stamp a bit of a disservice up above when I only placed him at sixth in Best Actor.  Stamp has always been an under-rated actor, yet he is interesting almost any time he appears on-screen (it’s not an accident that he was in Phantom Menace – they needed an actor of suitable presence for that small role).  He doesn’t completely repulse us precisely because in Stamp’s performance, in the way he looks at his young captive, the way he interacts with her and is finally disgusted by her, we get a measure of the true pain in this young man’s mind and understand that he can not help what he has become.

All of that is not to undercut the performance from Samantha Eggar.  She has, perhaps, the more thankless role, the coveted object and she must try to think up what she can to escape from this prison.  Unlike Stamp, she does not have a large career of comparable performances and so it is easier to ignore her, but she was nominated for an Oscar and she deserved that nomination.

William Wyler did a lot of different things as a director.  He won three Oscars, one of which was for the epic Ben-Hur.  But he could do very real domestic drama like The Best Years of Our Lives and could work well with great literature like Carrie.  The Collector would be his last hurrah – while Funny Girl, two years later, would earn a Best Picture nomination, this was his last really good film and he’s able to do incredible things in scenes just involving his two young actors.  It’s great to get this one last really good film before his last few films which are much more forgettable.

5 Worst Films  (#1 being the worst):

1. Color Me Blood Red
2. Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
3. Village of the Giants
4. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine
5. The Awful Dr. Orlof

note:  The bottom five has the usual kind of suspects in this era – a couple of low-budget sci-fi films and a couple of bad horror films.  But it also includes a terrible Comedy directed by Norman Taurog, who was once an Oscar nominated director (though undeservedly).  Both that film (Goldfoot) and Voyage were made by AIP, the king indie studio of bad films.

The poster is right – it will leave you aghast, but at how terrible it is.

Color Me Blood Red  (dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis)

I was all ready to write that this film comes from that master of splatter, Herschell Gordon Lewis.  But I have suffered through a few of Lewis’ films now and I don’t think he’s a master of anything, unless it’s making bad, bad films with no artistic value and ridiculous amounts of gore.  If his name sounds familiar to you it might be because of the film Juno where his praises are sung by Jason Bateman’s character.  But, like his preference for Sonic Youth, I find Bateman’s character’s taste to be extremely dubious.  There’s nothing artistic in Lewis, just tasteless gore.

Perhaps the problem is in the “splatter” genre in the first place, a genre that Lewis was one of the first to embrace, partially because in the days when the Code still existed these films could never pass the code and thus never really got wide releases.  Unlike the slasher film, which has had some really worthwhile films (Psycho, for example, or the first Halloween), splatter films are generally exercises in pointless gore.  It would be different if maybe there was a decent script or some production values or anything remotely resembling acting, but there isn’t of course, because Lewis doesn’t have any interest in that – he just wants to shock you.

The premise of this film is that an artist is criticized for his lack of color, discovers that blood makes the perfect red for his paintings and starts killing women to use their blood for his paintings.  Never mind that his paintings are hideous and that no one would have ever given him a show in the first place.  Forget that the film looks like it cost about $100.  The only point of this film is to have a lot of blood on-screen and they do that.  So, Lewis succeeds at what he wants to do.  That doesn’t make it worthwhile in any way, shape or form.  If this is your thing, by all means, go for it.  But be prepared for Lewis to be back at the bottom of this list again.

Points:

• Most Nighthawk Nominations:  Doctor Zhivago  (14)
• Most Nighthawk Awards:  Doctor Zhivago  (9)
• Most Nighthawk Points:  Doctor Zhivago  (660)
• Worst Film Nominated for a Nighthawk Award:  Red Line 7000
  
• 2nd Place Award:  Repulsion  (Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actress, Cinematography)
• 6th Place Award:  Darling  (Picture, Director)
• Most Nighthawk Drama Nominations:  Doctor Zhivago  (6)
• Most Nighthawk Drama Awards:  Doctor Zhivago  (4)
• Most Nighthawk Drama Points:  Doctor Zhivago  (395)
• Worst Film Nominated for a Nighthawk Drama Award:  Ship of Fools
• Most Nighthawk Comedy Nominations:  A Thousand Clowns  (5)
• Most Nighthawk Comedy Awards:  A Thousand Clowns  (3)
• Most Nighthawk Comedy Points:  A Thousand Clowns  (290)
• Worst Film Nominated for a Nighthawk Comedy Award:  Boeing Boeing

Note:  * means a Nighthawk record up to this point; ** ties a Nighthawk record

Progressive Leaders:

• Most Nighthawk Nominations:  The Wizard of Oz  (18)
• Most Nighthawk Awards:  The Wizard of Oz  (14)
• Most Nighthawk Points:  The Wizard of Oz  (795)
• Most Nighthawk Awards without winning Best Picture:  Frankenstein  /  The Magnificent Ambersons  (6)
• Most Nighthawk Nominations without a Best Picture Nomination:  Yojimbo  (11)
• Most Nighthawk Nominations without a Nighthawk Award:  Throne of Blood (13)
• Actor:  Humphrey Bogart  (475)
• Actress:  Bette Davis  (555)
• Director:   Billy Wilder  (585)
• Writer:  Billy Wilder  (880)
• Cinematographer:  Arthur Edeson  /  Gregg Toland  (200)
• Composer:  Max Steiner  (450)
• Foreign Film:  Akira Kurosawa  (360)

Breakdown by Genre  (Foreign in parenthesis, best film in genre following, avg. score is afterwards, in parenthesis):

• Foreign:  56  –  Drunken Angel  (65.2)
• Drama:  50 (24)  –  Doctor Zhivago  (68.3)
• Comedy:  24 (8)  –  A Thousand Clowns  (61.5)
• Horror:  16 (9)  –  Repulsion  (57.6)
• Musical:  15 (4)  –  The Umbrellas of Cherbourg  (60)
• Action:  11 (4)  –  Thunderball  (62.9)
• War:  7 (2)  –  King Rat  (70.9)
• Adventure:  6  (1)  –  Blood on the Land  (61.2)
• Crime:  6  (4)  –  Viva Maria  (64.2)
• Western:  6 (1)  –  Major Dundee  (65.3)
• Kids:  5 (1)  –  That Darn Cat  (54.2)
• Suspense:  4 (1)  –  The Ipcress File  (68.8)
• Sci-Fi:  3  –  The Damned  (25.7)
• Fantasy:  2  –  She  (65)
• Mystery:  1  –  Bunny Lake is Missing  (42)

Analysis:  The 50 Dramas are the lowest in four years and the second lowest, percentage wise, since 1943.  This is the second time (along with 1961) where Dramas are not the #1 genre.  The 11 action films are not only by far the most to date, they are as many as the three previous years combined and only one fewer than the whole 1950’s.  The 56 Foreign films are a new high.  The 16 Horror films tie the record for the most to date.  The 15 Musicals are the most since 1952.
The Action films have the lowest score of any year with multiple films.  The Crime films have their lowest average since 1958.  Kids films have their lowest average to date.  Because there is only one Mystery and it’s pretty bad, the genre has its lowest average to date.
For the second time in four years there are no Comedies in the Top 10 (before that it hadn’t happened since 1951); there is only one in the Top 20, the lowest since 1959.  There are 6 Dramas in the Top 10 – the most since 1960; there are 12 in the Top 20 – the most since 1959.  Repulsion becomes the first Top 10 Horror film since 1960, the second since 1945 and only the third since 1935.  Kwaidan is the #15 film, making this the first year since 1935 with multiple Horror films in the Top 20.

Studio Note:  For only the second time, Columbia has the most films, this time with 16.  MGM comes in second with 13 followed by United Artists with 12.  American International Pictures becomes the first non-major studio to hit double digits, with 10 films; as usual though, they’re terrible, averaging a 45.  This moves AIP to 45 total films and into the Top 10, above Republic.
Columbia has two films in the Top 10, the only major studio to do that, and the first time Columbia has done it since 1954.  Landau Releasing Organization, which only distributed a handful of films ever, gets two in the Top 10 (Pawnbroker and Umbrellas of Cherbourg).  Columbia and UA both end up with 3 films in the Top 20 – UA for the third year in a row, Columbia for the first time since 1954.  Meanwhile, Doctor Zhivago becomes the first MGM film to win my Best Picture since The Wizard of Oz.

54 Films Eligible for Best Foreign Film (alphabetical, with director and country in parenthesis – red are ****, blue are ***.5 – both those colors qualify for my Best Foreign Film Award; an asterisk means it was the Official selection for the Oscar, two asterisks were nominated, three asterisks won the Oscar):

• The 10th Victim  (Petri, Italy)
• The Ashes  (Wajda, Poland)
• Blood for a Silver Dollar  (Ferroni, Spain)
• Blood on the Land  (Georgiadis, Greece)  **
• Bloody Pit of Horror  (Hunter, Italy)
• Le Bonheur  (Varda, France)
• Brick and Mirror  (Golestan, Iran)
• Casanova 70  (Monicelli, Italy)
• The Coward  (Ray, India)
• Fists in the Pocket  (Bellocchio, Italy)
• Frankenstein Conquers the World  (Honda, Japan)
• Gertrud  (Dreyer, Denmark)  *
• Godzilla vs. Monster Zero  (Honda, Japan)
• The Golden Thread  (Ghatak, India)
• Guide  (Anand, India)  *
• I Am Twenty  (Khutsiyev, USSR)
• Juliet of the Spirits  (Fellini, Italy)
• Kwaidan  (Kobayashi, Japan)  **
• La Ronde  (Vadim, France)
• Mahaparush: The Holy Man  (Ray, India)
• Man is Not a Bird  (Makavejev, Yugoslavia)
• La Mandragola  (Lattuada, Italy)
• Marriage Italian Style  (De Sica, Italy)  **
• Minnesota Clay  (Corbucci, Italy)
• The Moment of Truth  (Rosi, Italy)
• The Monkey King  (Laiming, China)
• Ninety Degrees in the Shade  (Weiss, Czechoslovakia)
• Of a Thousand Delights  (Visconti, Italy)
• Pajarito Gomez  (Kuhn, Argentina)  *
• Pierrot le Fou  (Godard, France)  *
• Pinocchio in Outer Space  (Goossens, Belgium)
• A Pistol for Ringo  (Tessari, Italy)
• Planet of the Vampires  (Bava, Italy)
• Pleasures of the Flesh  (Oshima, Japan)
• Red Beard  (Kurosawa, Japan)
• Samurai Assassin  (Okamoto, Japan)
• Samurai Spy  (Shinoda, Japan)
• Sao Paulo International  (Person, Brazil)  *
• The Saragossa Manuscript  (Has, Poland)
• Shakespeare Wallah  (Ivory, India)
• The Shameless Old Lady  (Allio, France)
• The Shop on Main Street  (Kadar, Czechoslovakia)  ***
• Simon of the Desert  (Buñuel, Mexico)
• Six in Paris  (Godard, France)
• The Sleeping Car Murders  (Costa-Gavras, France)
• The Sucker  (Oury, France)
• Sword of the Beast  (Gosha, Japan)
• Tattooed Life  (Suzuki, Japan)
• Thomas the Imposter  (Franju, France)
• La Tia Tula  (Picazo, Spain)  *
• Twenty Hours  (Fabri, Hungary)  *
• Viva Maria  (Malle, France)
• Yoyo  (Etaix, France)
• Zhenitba Balzaminova  (Voynov, USSR)

Note:  Brick and Mirror is the first film I’ve seen from Iran.  Italy and France are again the top two countries for the year, with 12 and 10 films respectively, followed by Japan with 9, then India with 5 (the most I’ve ever seen).  Gertrud is my first film from Denmark since 1955 (in fact, all the Danish films up to this point are Dreyer films).  Twenty Hours is my first Hungarian film since 1957, but with Hungary submitting a film to the Oscars every year since, I usually have at least one Hungarian films in most years after this point.  With no Bergman film, there are no Swedish films; this won’t happen again until 1975.  The 12 Comedies are the most in a single year to date, while the 20 Dramas (out of 54 total films), account for the lowest percentage of foreign films since 1942.

Foreign Films Submitted for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars That I Haven’t Seen:

• Sweden:  Dear John  (dir. Lindgren)  (NOMINEE)
• Egypt:  The Impossible  (dir. Kamal)
• Israel:  The Glass Cage  (dir. Arthus / Levi-Alvares)
• Mexico:  Always Further Away  (dir. Alcoriza)

note:  At this point I am making a concerted effort to see as many submitted films as I can.  The full list can be found here.  This year I am 11 for 15, though, annoyingly, I am missing an actual nominee.  Always Further Away is the first Mexican submission I am missing.  Dear John is the only Swedish nominee I am missing.  After missing the first 6 submissions (including 3 nominees), Gertrud is the first Danish submission I actually have seen.  This is the first year with a submission from Hungary; they have never missed a submission yet and their streak of 50 straight years is second only to France who has never missed a submission (59 years).

Films Eligible in This Year But Originally Released in a Different Year:

• Drunken Angel  (1948)
• Variety Lights  (1950)
• Sleeping Beauty  (1955)
• The Railroad Man  (1956)
• Blessings of the Land  (1959)
• Facts of Murder  (1959)
• Kapo  (1960)
• The Human Condition Part III  (1961)
• A Woman is a Woman  (1961)
• Assault on the Pay Train  (1962)
• The Awful Dr. Orlof  (1962)
• The Door with Seven Locks  (1962)
• Nine Days of the Year  (1962)
• The Treasure of Silver Lake  (1962)
• The Wild and the Willing  (1962)
• Bay of the Angels  (1963)
• Contempt  (1963)
• The Damned  (1963)
• Horror Castle  (1963)
• The Love Eterne  (1963)
• Muriel  (1963)
• The Red Lanterns  (1963)
• Sammy Going South  (1963)
• Station Six-Sahara  (1963)
• Agent 38-24-36  (1964)
• Blood and Black Lace  (1964)
• Carry on Cleo  (1964)
• Charulata  (1964)
• Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb  (1964)
• Diary of a Chambermaid  (1964)
• Genghis Khan  (1964)
• The Gorgon  (1964)
• The Horrible Dr. Hichcock  (1964)
• The Leather Boys  (1964)
• Male Hunt  (1964)
• The Naked Kiss  (1964)
• Onibaba  (1964)
• The Pawnbroker  (1964)
• The Pleasure Seekers  (1964)
• Psyche 59  (1964)
• Red Desert  (1964)
• Sallah  (1964)
• The Soft Skin  (1964)
• The Tomb of Ligeia  (1964)
• The Train  (1964)
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg  (1964)
• Welcome, or No Trespassing  (1964)
• Woman in the Dunes  (1964)
• The Yellow Rolls-Royce  (1964)

Note:  These 50 films average a 64.6.  Because of Drunken Angel, Umbrellas and The Pawnbroker, they account for almost a third of the Nighthawk nominations, including two for Best Picture.

Films Not Listed at Oscars.org:

• Agent 38-24-36
• The Ashes
• Assault on the Pay Train
• Blessings of the Land
• Blood on the Land
• Brick and Mirror
• Charulata
• Color Me Blood Red
• The Coward
• The Damned
• The Door with Seven Locks
• The Facts of Murder
• The Golden Thread
• Guide
• I Am Twenty
• The Love Eterne
• Mahaparush: The Holy Man
• Man from Button Willow
• Man is Not a Bird
• Ninety Degrees in the Shade
• Pyramid of the Sun God
• Samurai Spy
• Sao Paulo, Sociedade Anonima
• Sleeping Beauty
• Sword of the Beast
• Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
• Welcome, or No Trespassing
• The Whip and the Body
• Willy McBean and His Magic Machine

Note:  I use the list at Oscars.org for deciding which year films are eligible in.  Some films, however, don’t appear in that database.  For those films, I use the IMDb.  These are the films that aren’t listed in the Oscars.org database but that end up in this year.
There is a larger than usual list that actually aren’t from 1965 (11), but most of these are 1965 Foreign films that never got an official U.S. release.  Four of these films were submitted to the Oscars for Best Foreign Film (Blood on the Land, Guide, Sao Paulo and The Love Eterne, which was submitted in 1963).  Charulata is the only one of these films to end up on any of my lists, earning a Nighthawk nomination for Best Original Score.

Films Released This Year Originally But Eligible in a Different Year 

• Alphaville  (1966)
• Le Bonheur  (1966)
• The Face of Fu Manchu  (1966)
• Faster Pussycat Kill Kill  (1966)
• Frankenstein Conquers the World  (1966)
• Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster  (1966)
• The Heroes of Telmark  (1966)
• Juliet of the Spirits  (1966)
• La Mandragola  (1966)
• Minnesota Clay  (1966)
• The Moment of Truth  (1966)
• Moment to Moment  (1966)
• Mudhoney!  (1966)
• Of a Thousand Delights  (1966)
• A Pistol for Ringo  (1966)
• Red Beard  (1966)
• The Saragossa Manuscript  (1966)
• The Shameless Old Lady  (1966)
• The Shop on Main Street  (1966)
• The Sleeping Car Murders  (1966)
• Tarzan and the Valley of Gold  (1966)
• Tattooed Life  (1966)
• Ten Little Indians  (1966)
• Zhenitba Balzaminova  (1966)
• Blood for a Silver Dollar  (1967)
• For a Few Dollars More  (1967)
• Gertrud  (1967)
• Shakespeare Wallah  (1967)
• A Study in Terror  (1967)
• The Sucker  (1967)
• Yoyo  (1967)
• Fists in the Pocket  (1968)
• Pierrot Le Fou  (1968)
• Six in Paris  (1968)
• Bloody Pit of Horror  (1969)
• Chimes at Midnight  (1969)
• Dr. Who and the Daleks  (1969)
• Simon of the Desert  (1969)
• Godzilla vs. Monster Zero  (1970)
• The Shooting  (1972)
• Thomas the Imposter  (1972)
• The Monkey King  (2012)

Note:  These 42 films average a 61.5.  There is one truly magnificent film (Chimes) and five very good films (Red Beard, Simon of the Desert, Yoyo, The Shop on Main Street and Le Bonheur), but they are counterbalanced by the four films below **: Moment to Moment, Faster Pussycat, Mudhoney and the 0 star film Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster.